I'm looking to run Linux off of a USB drive (512MB). I would like to have:

-A 2.6.x kernel-Hardware detection so I can use it on any machine-The ability to uninstall whatever came with the distro-GCC readily available-Some space left over so I can actually use it as a USB drive

I'll give it a try with Bochs and check it out...Any other suggestions are still welcome, though.

ran into a recommendation for pclinuxos when I was checking to see if there was a dsl roll your own. No idea what it actually does. Might be worth a quick look, though

PCLinuxOS seems to be a full distro (it says it needs 5GB of disk space)

LMAO told you I didn't know what it did sorry.

If you are desperate you can do a knoppix remaster yourself.. just strip it out and put back the stuff you need. Might take more time (especially if you did addional compression), but it would certainly work

I'll give it a try with Bochs and check it out...Any other suggestions are still welcome, though.

ran into a recommendation for pclinuxos when I was checking to see if there was a dsl roll your own. No idea what it actually does. Might be worth a quick look, though

PCLinuxOS seems to be a full distro (it says it needs 5GB of disk space)

LMAO told you I didn't know what it did sorry.

If you are desperate you can do a knoppix remaster yourself.. just strip it out and put back the stuff you need. Might take more time (especially if you did addional compression), but it would certainly work

Any chance of just installing some "regular" (eg not live-CD) distro onto USB instead of a hard disk? Would it work without hardware detection?